


So like what's gonna happen next? an Owl House essay

by Hokandory_Bogaloo



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: Analysis, Essays, I don't know if its good, I was trying to write a fic and this came out of me instead, Luz Noceda - Freeform, Other, but I've spent like 2 hours on it, so I may as well, themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:41:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26576983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hokandory_Bogaloo/pseuds/Hokandory_Bogaloo
Summary: I've been thinking a lot since the season finale, I love this show and I love Luz and as I was trying to write a fic my mind went places and I had to get it out. I don't know if the predictions I made here will actually happen at all but I dont really care, just thinking about this show is fun
Kudos: 4





	So like what's gonna happen next? an Owl House essay

This not a theory on who the mysterious figure at the end of the season is or stuff like it like “who’s sending the letters to Luz’s mom”, this is mostly an analysis of of the themes of the show and where I think it may be heading in the future with what has been shown so far.

The show is mostly Luz’s adventures and growth in the Boiling Isles and so far it has done a good job of wearing its theme in its sleeve: The push to doubt authority figures and the systems they’d put in place while still encouraging the notion of exploring said options without rejecting them outright (S1:EP5 Covention). But a far more interesting one, at least to me, are the themes explored through Luz and how they seem to be the main lesson of the show and by extension the ones that will determine its trajectory going forward.  
Luz’s main journey of growth through the show begins the moment we meet her for the first time through her fantasy, the clash between fantasy and reality or more specifically the clash between reality and our perception of it. Luz is a bizarre, fantasy loving, AMV making kid and while her shenanigans are hilarious they are also shown to sometimes be destructive and harm the people around her; like seriously, she brought snakes to school. 

The show doesn't really criticize Luz’s taste or attitude for her behavior but rather her unchecked desire for escapism, which is so overwhelming she sometimes acts without taking into account the people around her as she attempts to live out the tropes and plots of the media she loves. And in an appropriate fashion the show takes Luz into a fantasy world that is anything but like the tropes she loves. So far Luz has lived out adventures that challenge her expectation of the world she wished to live in, the most obvious example takes place in the second episode as she follows the tropes of her stories almost into her doom but is a recurrent thing in the show; taking Edas elixir thinking it will help her do magic, trying to befriend Amity base on expectations garnered from fiction rather than reflecting on how she’s come off based on their previous interactions. Ultimately like the champion she is Luz comes out more learned and wiser from it.

In short The Owl House tells us that there is nothing wrong with our taste and passions, no matter how bizarre, as long as we don’t let them take over our reality as this will inevitably end up hurting the people around us and ourselves.

Now, let’s talk about Emperor Belos.

The emperor is still a very enigmatic figure, we know only as much about him as the characters which is little so far and while we can only speculate what his intentions are with the portal I think that if we pay attention to the themes of the show we can make some guesses as to what his deal is and what we can expect to happen in the future.

I believe the emperor is a human, I know this isn’t an uncommon theory but I don’t just mean that for the way he uses magic; I believe the emperor is human because I believe he is Luz’s foil. To those that may not know the exact definition, a foil is a character that stands in direct contrast to another, they may have the same goals but everything from their intentions, morals, and even demeanor exist to highlight those of another character often challenging them. So far in the show Luz hasn’t really had a foil, one may point to Amity to contradict this statement but those two have never really differed that much; the only time Amity ever stood directly in Luz’s goal to become a witch was during the Covention episode (S1:EP5) and she was quick to drop that once Luz showed her that she was actually working hard to become a witch. Meanwhile Emperor Belos is all Luz wanted to be when she arrived at the Isles and everything she stands against by the end of the season; a chosen one risen from obscurity that came to save the Boiling Isles from chaos by bringing order to them. Sounds much more like a foil doesn’t it?.

But I feel like we may need more substantial evidence so let’s recap the more concrete elements that point to him being human:  
1.-Humans are fragile, and no that's not me making a general statement about the perishable flesh sacks that make us is something that one of the kids in episode 8 says to Luz-or King I suppose-and something that gets restated a couple of times in the show. One of the first moments that shows the difference in how reclient the inhabitants of the Boiling Isles are compared to humans is in the first episode when Eda gets her head cut off and the only one really alarm by this is Luz; compare this with the first time we see the emperor, hunched over, heaving until he sucks the magic out of a palisman, this guy is being in the Isles for at least 50 years and it's safe to guess that he has being there longer, likely age hasn’t being kind on him.

2.-His magic. This is the most obvious one with his mechanized staff and machines running along his throne room connected to the Titans' heart. Belos has clearly found his own way of connecting with the Island but an extra detail about this that was pointed out in Sarcastic Summary’s review of the season finale (Go watch it on youtube is pretty good) is the way the show portrays Belos using magic is inconsistent and likely on purpose. The first time we see him use magic is through his staff but during his fight with Luz after he melts into the floor from his throne we see Belos without his staff casting magic with his hands like other witches, that’s until, Luz is captures by the flesh golems and he comes from the shadows with his staff in hand again; casting illusions of himself while his actual body is protected. Like I said, humans are fragile and we can see that by how easy it was for Luz to actually hurt him once he was close. 

With all of this I’ll like to go a little further in analysing Belos character, here we leave the hypothesis and fully enter the realm of speculation. Like I mentioned I believe that Belos is Luz’s foil and I that they both began from the same place, but while Luz had a mentor to teach her that her fantasies of magical destiny were just that and that life is more complicated, Belos dove head first into his delusion, he thought himself a chosen one and made himself emperor of the Isles casting out everyone who didn’t fit with his vision of how things should be, for him his vision is the only one that matters and everyone else follows. Basically he’s like one of those people that screams that their headcanon is the only one that matters. 

It could also be the opposite, someone that’s fully aware of these tropes and abused them to make himself seem like a deific figure to the inhabitants of Isles and make his conquest easier, alienating individuals that didn’t see him as the “true emissary of the Titan”. Regardless of whether his full of shit or not his actions remain and I feel like either explanation for them works, and that regardless of which, his plan for the portal is the same.

Belos makes reference of the foretold “Day of Unity” and while we don’t really know what it is going to be about we know it involves the portal and that according to him they don’t actually want to invade the human realm, which I’m gonna believe because with all we’ve discussed so far I think his actual goal is to bring magic to the human realm, whether that be leaving a permanent portal open to allow people to come to the Boiling Isles as they please or what I think is far more likely from the way we see him use magic, taking the magic from the Boiling Isles and into the human realm, as in, physically. We’ve already seen in the season finale that while witches can use magic on earth because of their bile sack, Luz’s glyphs are useless since her magic comes from the island. 

This is why my first thought was that Belos is a delusional fool trapped in his own fantasy of grandeur, he wants to be this messiah that brings magic to a “boring” world and lets everyone live their escapist fantasy without any real care to what will happen to the Isles or their inhabitants.

I believe that in their final face off Luz and Belos will cross to the human world where Luz will try to make him seem reason and the fact that his risking the lives of real people, he won’t see reason obviously and maybe a fight will ensue where Belos will likely start running out of whatever magic is keeping him alive as he’s no longer in the Isles. I feel like around this time there will likely be a temptation moment like Luke and Emperor type stuff but with how much Luz hates Belos already I think that if it does happen it will be to display how pathetic and crazy the emperor is that he thinks Luz will take his offer or it will come down to Luz having to choose to destroy the portal again to protect both worlds this time saying goodbye to the Boiling Isles forever(probably not forever but this will likely be a finale so drama is necessary). Regardless of what happens the emperor runs out of magic and he ages instantly (probably turns to dust), dying not like a god, martyr or messiah but like a regular human succumbing to age; leaving behind his mask as a representation of what he always was, a hollow symbol. 

Welp, that’s my analysis and what I think will happen going forward, got very speculative towards the end but I like to try and guess stuff like that.


End file.
